


twenty-thousand leagues above the ocean

by ErinNovelist



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M, Romance, Shiro's Fun Year, Stars, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 13:47:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12772362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinNovelist/pseuds/ErinNovelist
Summary: “Please,” he begs, glancing up at Keith again, heart throbbing against his ribs. Bare bones are the only thing stopping him from throwing himself at the man he’s known forever. “Just tell me who you are.”Keith looks up at the silver sky, at the worn jacket Shiro clenches close, at the shaky hands shoved into deep pockets to keep warm. “My name is Keith, and I know that doesn’t mean anything to you right now, but someday you’re going to be someone very important to me.” He sighs and tightens his grip on Shiro’s shoulder, leather soft beneath his fingertips. “You already are, and you’re the only reason I’m not lost right now.”“I don’t understand,” Shiro tells him because he doesn’t know what else to say.Keith only cocks his head and smiles. “I’m lost in time, Shiro. And… well, you’ve always been my guiding light, I guess.”For prompt 1: time/space, of Shiro Week 2017.





	twenty-thousand leagues above the ocean

Two stars in the same constellation are always destined to be together. Locked in orbit millions of light years away from each other, from a distance, they’re only a pinprick away. Two other stars in different constellations will never be connected, for it’s only possible if all of time and space were to work together to move them into place.

Shiro has always known Keith was a sun in his sky—he just never imagined he’d be one in his.

 

* 

**then.**

When Takashi Shirogane is six years old, he falls in love with the stars. 

Somewhere between throwing his toy dinosaurs out and putting up the action figures on his shelves, sometime after his discovery of Major Vance Astro and the Guardians of the Galaxy comic books, his father buys him glow-in-the-dark plastic stars and plasters them across his ceiling. It helps because Shiro is afraid of the dark. Even after he outgrows his childhood fear, and the action figures are replaced with a collection of model rocket ships, the stairs remain.

There’s really no rhyme or reason for it. Being the last thing he falls asleep to and the first thing he sees waking up makes the stars a somewhat permanent fixture in his life. It’s like the security blanket he used to carry around when he was a toddler, the stained and tattered fuzzy blanket his grandmother gave him, and made him feel safe. Laying back in his bed, head cradled on soft pillows and nestled under that same blanket, Shiro looks up at his homemade night sky and shuts his eyes, the faint purple glow from the stars dancing behind his closed lids.

Sometimes a star will fall, and Shiro makes a wish because that’s what you do with a shooting star. But when the night comes, and his sky looks bare, he heads for the craft store in town with his father to buy more stars to fill the gaps the others left.

While his father asks the store clerk where to find the stars, Shiro decides he’s old enough to look on his own. At six, he’s full of fire and wit, eager to grow up and show the world he’s ready to take it on. So if that means he’s going to find his own plastic stars, and pay for them with his own money, then god damn it, he’s doing to do it.

He sneaks around the corner and finds them easily at the end of the aisle, nestled between the glitter and cookie cutters, glimmering from the top shelf. There’s no hesitation before he’s scaling the shelving, and he can almost reach it, but then his foot slips out from under him. Shiro almost falls, but then a man in a red and white jacket catches him around his rail-thin waist and sets him down.

There’s a commotion at the front of the store. His father has noticed he’s gone.

“You need to be careful, Shiro,” the man tells him, hands on his shoulders with a stern look in his eyes. “You could’ve gotten hurt.”

And then he’s gone before Shiro can say anything, but not before slipping a small package of plastic stars into his hands.

 

(These stars glow red.)

 

* 

**now.**

“Keith’s not dead,” Shiro tells Slav because there’s no way in any conceivable reality that Keith Kogane has perished in a simple wormhole jump.

But everyone—the Paladins, the Blades, the Rebels—sees the explosion that follows when the Red Lion enters the wormhole after them, lagging to take care of that final Galra cruiser. There’s a short few moments when they’re sure that Keith’s made it, poised on the edge of the wormhole when it closes _,_ and then he’s _gone_. Like someone snuffed out a candle, the Lion and its Paladin disappear in crackle of heat and flame, until all that’s left is the lingering smoke from a source that’s long since burned out. 

Shiro runs desperate to the control room where the Coalition is regrouping, the platitudes on the tip of his tongue as he scans the room, denying that the explosion ever happened. There’s no guarantee that Keith perished, even though Allura is adamant about her wormhole science. Shiro refuses to listen after that. 

Slav, the little fucker, has inserted himself into the conversation from the very beginning, and Shiro’s itching to take him out, and he doubts anyone would try to stop him at the rate the scientist is going. “No, no, aren’t you listening? I said he was _gone_.”

“And I’m electing to ignore that comment.” Shiro crosses his arms against his chest, turning away before he _can_ actually punch Slav. “He’s not dead, he’s not gone, or whatever you think happened.”

“He’s lost.” And why does Slav keep saying that? Shiro already _knows_.

“Exactly.” Shiro turns on his heel, flicking a wrist in Pidge’s direction. “Can you track the Red Lion? He probably got spat out somewhere else, like the first time the wormhole malfunctioned.”

“I’ve already done that,” comes Pidge’s voice—soft and frail. “There’s no signal.”

“Try again then,” Shiro orders, seating himself in his pilot chair at the front of the control room aware of the occupants’ heavy stares on his back. He ignores them, focusing on the mission at hand. “He probably just fell out along the way.”

Keith never gave up on him, even when the world said otherwise, so who is Shiro to abandon Keith now?

Allura sighs, running a hand through her long hair; eyes, already red and watery, are trained on the data screens in front of her. “He wasn’t even fully in the wormhole, Shiro, so how could he have fallen out?” 

Shoulders tense, back rigid and stiff, he refuses to acknowledge her words because that would mean coming to terms with the fact that Keith might be _dead_ , and that’s something Shiro’s never prepared himself to face. He flicks through the holograms, inputting the numbers and data in hopes of strengthening the signal so that they might catch _something_ which resembles Keith in the cold, vast expanse of space. The program blinks to the rhythm of his heart.

When it stops, his heart does too.

  _No signal can be traced._

“Don’t worry,” he says, more to himself than the rest of the room. “We’ll find him, I promise.”

 His voice is shaking.

 

*

 

**then.**

When Shiro is nine, he spends the summer saving up his allowance and doing yard work for Mrs. Barnes down the road to buy his first telescope.

 After he purchases it, his father piles it into the back of the old family pick-up truck and takes him to the fields outside of town, miles away from the city lights and city noise. They set the telescope up on a hill, wrapped in blankets and knit caps to protect against the night chill, and take turns staring at the cloudless sky.  

 “So what do you see?” his father asks, a warm smile slipping onto his face.

 Looking into the eyepiece of the telescope, Shiro gestures towards the cluster of stars to the right of them. “Those three stars over there form the head of _Pegasus._ ”

 His father nods, even though he knows absolutely _nothing_ about stars and planets and space, but Shiro _does_ , and he could wax poetry about them to anyone. “...And it’s connected to the rest of the body over… _there_.” His finger trails down the spine of the constellation, stopping at another collection of stars. “And that one’s _Andromeda_ —”

Shiro stops when movement catches his eye. Turning slight, he sees a man a few yards behind him. The moon casts a glow over him, highlighting the soft expression on his face. It’s in the twinkle of his eyes, the upturned corners of his mouth, wind-kissed cheeks and open lips, like he’s caught mid-laughter. Something about his smile—that breathless wonder written across his face like a secret—strikes a chord with Shiro.

He turns back to his father, who’s still staring at the sky. “Hey, Dad, who’s that man?”

His father looks up, confusion lingering on his face, and Shiro points behind them. But when Shiro turns back, the man has vanished.

“What man?” his father asks.

Shiro doesn’t know, telling himself it was a trick of light. 

But the man wore a cropped red and white jacket. It’s hard to miss.

 

(He swears he’s seen him before.)

 

*

 

**now.**

“Why did you fall in love with the stars?” Keith had asked him one night, a week before he disappeared, when Shiro had stumbled into the observatory and found him staring out the window.

Two small lanterns were placed in the corner of the room, bathing the area in a soft blue glow. In the center of it, on the chilly tiled floor in only his boxers and an old shirt he’d found at the Space Mall months ago, was Keith. Sock-clad feet pulled close and arms looped around his legs, chin resting atop his knees, he stared out into space and the stars with lost eyes.

“Not sure.” Shiro had folded his legs underneath himself and joined Keith.

“Do you still look at them?”

“Not really,” he said nonchalantly, “Too busy, I guess.” But the truth was that sometime between being a war prisoner and a leader, the stars had lost their effect.

Somewhere along the line, Shiro fell out of love with the stars.

There was silence for a few seconds before Keith asked again, “What did the stars look like from Kerberos?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged helplessly, the memory dimmed and distant in the back of his head. It’d been nearly two years ago, and while the constellations of a different world had once fascinated him, it was lost in the passage of time and war. “The same, I guess?”

“You were supposed to look for me,” Keith told him begrudgingly with a small smile, and Shiro only laughed lowly, shaking his head.

“I did,” he recalled. “I’m sorry I forgot.”

 “You made a lot of promises when you left,” Keith said, and _oh_ , Shiro’s heart dropped.

“I did,” he agreed.

“You said you’d tell me what the stars looked like, that you’d come back, that everything would be okay.” Keith’s voice was low even though it was just the two of them in the room, as if noise could break the fragile, precious stillness between them. “You didn’t keep any of them.”

Shiro chanced a glance at Keith, and in the dim light, he looked awful. From the heavy bags under his eyes to the paleness of his gaunt face, it was clear he needed rest, but with the added stress of his Marmora training and keeping up with Voltron’s missions, Shiro knew it was a wonder he even managed what he did.

 “I’m sorry,” was all he could offer Keith though. “I tried.”

Keith lifted his head and stared at Shiro for a short moment, searching his face for the answers to questions he couldn’t voice. After a while, he turned back, and maybe he’d found what he was looking for or maybe he was still just as lost as before. Either way, he didn’t say anything.

 “Maybe you should stop making promises,” Keith suggested, eyes glinting in the lantern light. “Promises mean… later, tomorrow… and if you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of a war. We aren’t guaranteed a tomorrow, Shiro.”

As always, Shiro knew that Keith had a point. He had a tendency to make promises because he couldn’t deal with things in the _now_ , only concentrating on the _when_ , and too busy worrying about things he did in the _then_. It’s something that’s been with him since childhood, the blooming excitement of things to come, because eagerness was the most powerful emotion when you’re waiting for something. Focusing all your efforts on that kept the anxiety at bay.

Just before the Kerberos launch, he had pulled Keith to the side and whispered a slew of promises under his breath: how he’d tell Keith about the stars from Kerberos, how he’d be okay, how he’d come back, how Keith would excel in the pilot program as a fighter pilot while he’s gone, how they’d talk more once he returned. Even with the promises, there were so many things he left unsaid before he left for Kerberos, too focused on the mission to worry about anything else (too eager to see those stars up close), and in the end, it cost him dearly. 

The repercussions were things he was only realizing now as Keith pulled farther and farther away each day, and it became harder and harder to get close to him.

Perhaps Shiro should have said something then, in the observatory under the lantern light as they stared up at the unfamiliar stars in an unfamiliar galaxy so far away from home. Maybe he should have finally told Keith how he felt, apologized for not coming back, or reassured him that things were okay now at least. 

He did none of those though.

Instead, he kept making promises.

“You should get some sleep,” he told Keith in the observatory. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow, I promise.”

Is it a surprise they never do?

 

(“We’ll be fine,” he tells Keith before the mission. “It’ll be simple: go in, get the information, and leave.”

“You sure?” Keith asks. “Kolivan thinks it might be more difficult than that. We should wait, maybe have the Blades scout the base before we go." 

Shiro only smiles. “Stop worrying so much about it. It’s going to be easy. We’ll be back before you know it, I promise.” 

Keith doesn’t come back. 

Shiro still hasn’t learned.)

 

*

 

**then.**

At twelve, Shiro is in his school library and has checked out a book on planets.

Having long ago memorized the constellations, he sets out to study the solar system and the rest of the known Milky Way galaxy. He can recite every fact he knows as easily as his address or telephone numbers: how Sagittarius B is a molecular cloud of gas and dust and contains 10-billion-billion-billion liters of alcohol, how Mars is home to the tallest mountain in the solar system, how only one spacecraft has ever flown by Neptune, and how Pluto sometimes has an atmosphere. 

Shiro’s reading about Mars and the first man-led mission to the red planet when a man slips into the seat next to his, and he catches a glimpse of a red and white jacket out of the corner of his eye.

“Who’re you?” Shiro asks out of the blue.

The man pauses, startled for a moment, before a worn and wary smile tugs at the corners of his lips. “I’m Keith.” Silence lingers for a few heartbeats, and then the man taps the table beside Shiro. “So, you like space?”

Shiro bites his lip as he scans him, familiarity tugging at his mind even though he should be wary. He can’t find it in himself to treat this man like a stranger.

“Yeah,” Shiro answers, putting his book down on the table. The man holds out a hand for it, so Shiro passes it over, the shiny plastic cover glinting under the dim library lighting. “Space is really cool.”

The man flips through the book, turning pages carefully until the cover stares back at him, the Milky Way turning in the middle of space with the title written across the top in purple bubble scrawl. He puts a finger on the picture, tracing one of the spiral galaxy’s tails, and frowns.

“What do you want to be when you grow up, Shiro?” the man asks him.

Shiro, who knows so much about Mercury’s orbit and Saturn’s rings, who still has glow-in-the-dark plastic stars plastered to his ceiling, who wants to know how this man knows his name, shrugs half-heartedly. “I want to go to space.” 

And the man— _Keith_ —smiles again, and his purple-gray eyes sparkle like stars. “Something tells me you just might do that someday.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Mhmm, I promise.”

 

*

 

**now.**

Shiro awakes to the sound of a distinct knock on his door.

 It’s the _rat-a-tat-tat_ on the metal fixture that resounds through his head like a twisted lullaby, tearing him from his deep sleep into abrupt awareness with its harsh tune. He bolts upright, nearly clocking his head on the ceiling of his bunk, and fumbles with the sheets which are twined around his legs from a nightmare-laden sleep. Feet move faster than hands as he tumbles out of bed and hurries towards the door, the blankets still wrapped around him, thumbing for the opening-mechanism before the person on the other side leaves.

“Shiro!” The person bangs against the door once more, the _thud_ reverberating through the entire room. “Come on! We found something.”

 Shiro digs the heels of his palms into his eyes, rubbing the sleep dust from them, and blinks blearily as the door finally slides open. It’s Pidge, wide-eyed and worried, and staring up at him with a frantic hope that sparks life in his heart again.

“We found Red,” is the only thing she offers, and honestly, it’s the only thing he needs to bolt out of his bedroom—slippers, tank, and all—and into the control room.

There’s a group in the control room, full of sleep-deprived aliens and tired humans, friends and family, who stand together, eyes bright with relief and exhaustion, with Shiro at the helm, watching through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows as two Marmora ships bring the Red Lion into its hangar. The sight is wonderful, and something in his spine loosens, tension he’d been carrying this whole time slowly melting away. Having Keith back is all he really needs. However, the grim expressions on Coran and Kolivan’s faces tell him of something else, that something might be off when it comes to this rescue operation. 

Outside the Castle, the Red Lion floats aimlessly. Dark and cold, a metal ship dying in the space between the stars, there are scorch marks on its red and white muzzle, streaking down its body until the tangled metal of the tail and hind legs. Its eyes are dark and shuttered. 

The taste of smoke sits heavy in Shiro’s lungs.

When they finally bring Red into the hangar and pry open her hatch, it’s really no surprise that Keith isn’t there.

 

*

 

**then.**

At fifteen, Shiro is accepted into the Galaxy Garrison.

Shortly before he moves to the Garrison, Shiro spends one morning peeling the plastic stars from his ceiling, paint sticking to their backs and plaster tickling his nose, until he sneezes so hard that he falls off the ladder he’d smuggled into his bedroom. A broken wrist is worth the few plastic stars he manages to collect, though instructors at the Garrison don’t think so when he’s forced to skip out of the simulation training for the first few weeks of his first year.

To be honest, though, Shiro couldn’t care less that he must wait a little longer to start piloting. At least he has a little bit of home with him, as homesickness turns into a deep, hungry ache in the pit of his stomach.

When he gets a chance, he explores the campus and facilities, finding a locked but deserted stairwell that leads to an access door for the roof. It’s the perfect place to look at the stars when the nights get too hard, and soon, it becomes a part of Shiro’s regular routine.

Sometimes, on mornings like these, Shiro comes up during the day when the sky has been painted like a child, a mess of grays and blacks against a white canvas, and the sight only makes him frown. Huddled in the worn, heavy jacket his father gave him before he left, Shiro sits against the brick border and tries to find comfort in the sky like he does back home.

There’s a shuffle beside him as a man in a red and white jacket— _Keith_ , he remembers—strolls across the rooftop, steps slow and careful as he comes closer. One look at the expression on Shiro’s face, and he’s plopping down beside him with a wordless smile, neither meant to greet or comfort, merely to acknowledge to Shiro that’s he’s here and he’s not leaving him.

“Homesick?” Keith asks.

Shiro sighs. “Just a little.”

Keith only hums in understanding, tilting his head back against the bricks. “I was the same way a long time ago.”

Shiro nods, swallowing thickly before asking, though his eyes don’t leave the sky, “How do you always know where I am? Why are you always there?”

Keith’s shoulder brushes his own as he shrugs. “I always know where to find you, Shiro. It’s just something I do.” Silence lingers between them, the kind that’s heavy and suffocating, that makes you feel like you can’t breathe even though there’s nothing that stops you.

“Who are you?” Shiro bites out without thought, hands slipping into the pockets of his father’s jacket. It still smells like him—cologne, leather, oil, and home. The jacket and Keith are the only bits of familiarity he’s found in the weeks since he left home. Not even the stars out here, in the middle of the desert where he’s supposed to be living his dreams, are the same

Beside him, Keith laughs lowly. “I told you. I’m Keith.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Shiro starts to argue but stops when Keith places a hand on his shoulder, and the tension slowly melts away.

“I know it’s not the answer you want,” Keith tells him, lips pursed in a thin line. “But it’s the only one you’re going to get right now. It’s the only one I can give you." 

This is how it goes:

He’s four and buying plastic stars.

He’s seven and looking through his first telescope.

He’s twelve and decides he wants to go to space.

He’s fifteen and misses home.

If he looks back over the years, from when he was four to fifteen, he remembers glimpses of a red and white jacket, kind eyes that promise things will be okay, a voice and laugh that’s as deep as the vast openness and mystery of space. Shiro is full of questions with no answers, and it leaves a hollow ache deep within his chest. The mystery of _not knowing_ , of the _hows_ and the _whys_ surrounding Keith—someone he thinks he’s known his whole life—makes his heart crack in his chest.

“Please,” he begs, glancing up at Keith again, heart throbbing against his ribs. Bare bones are the only thing stopping him from throwing himself at the man he’s known forever. “Just tell me _something._ ”

Keith looks up at the silver sky, at the worn jacket Shiro clenches close, at the shaky hands shoved into deep pockets to keep warm. “My name is Keith, and I know that doesn’t mean anything to you right now, but someday you’re going to be someone very important to me.” He sighs and tightens his grip on Shiro’s shoulder, leather soft beneath his fingertips. “You already are, and you’re the only reason I’m not lost right now.”

“I don’t understand,” Shiro tells him because he doesn’t know what else to say.

 Keith only cocks his head and smiles. “I’m lost in time, Shiro. And… well, you’ve always been my guiding light, I guess.”

*

 

**now.**

****

“Time travel?” Shiro asks, and he doesn’t believe it.

From the look on everyone else’s faces, they don’t either.

Slav crosses his arms against his torso, peering down at them as if they’re all crazy. Gritting his teeth, Shiro takes a deep breath, praying that the scientist will explain the theory he’d spat out—because right now it’s the only other option that doesn’t involve Keith being _dead_. Because that singular fear, that his friend is dead, has settled over him like a fog during the last few days, and now rests deep in his lungs, pressed down by duty and breath. It’s become a part of a him, a reality he doesn’t want to face but might just have to if they don’t find something soon.

Time travel isn’t death. At this rate, Shiro will take it.

Coming from Slav though…

 Slav scoffs at them. “Do I really need to repeat myself? I already told you he was lost, but there’s absolutely no reality in which anyone listens to me. Words are a math too.”

Shiro gestures for him to continue, makes a move to shake some sense into him, because Keith is not a language people need to learn to speak. Allura’s hand on his shoulder stops him. “Please, Slav, whatever you can tell us.”

 “There’s a 20.2% chance he’s lost in space, a 58.9% he’s lost in the worm hole, and a 20.9% he’s lost in time. The results speak for themselves.” Slav bends over Pidge’s data tablet, pointing to the readings from the Lion that the Paladin had gathered. “The Red Lion came out of the worm hole which means your Paladin did too, but that doesn’t mean Keith came out in space. He might have come through time and now is lost.”

Shiro lets out a breath, knots in spine loosening, and his arms fall to his side. “He’s okay then?”

Slav shakes his head, blinking hard. “Oh no, no, no, do you know what happens when you’re lost in time? He could come out at the beginning of time and burn in the birth of a star? Or what if gravity tears him apart, bit by bit, while he’s traveling through the wormhole, and then there’s nothing left to find until some space dust filters through your ventilation system someday?" 

“So how do we find him?” Pidge’s shaky voice asks.

“You don’t,” Kolivan says.

“Yes, we do.” Shiro’s voice is sharp, can cut through steel, hard as diamonds. “I promise, we’re going to find him and bring him home.”

“But you can’t!” Slav argues, frustration settling in his eyes. 

“Well we can’t just sit around and wait for him to show up!” Shiro’s on his feet.

“Don’t you understand what lost means?” Slav spits out. “Being lost means you can’t be found.”

 _Words are a math_ , Slav said.

 _Don’t make promises you can’t keep_ , Kolivan warned.

 _We aren’t guaranteed a tomorrow,_ Keith told him.

 

At night, in his dreams, Shiro screams.

 

*

 

**then.**

Shiro climbs the stairs to the roof to go look at the stars.

He’s nineteen in his last year at the Galaxy Garrison as a cadet two weeks into the semester, and soon he’ll be graduating and going on missions, and now the stars are suddenly so much closer than ever before. Outside, the desert air is cool, a slight breeze picking up and stirring the sand below and the flags above, prickling the hair on his arms as he moves towards the brick border of the rooftop.

Tonight, there’s someone else there.

In the four years since he came to the Garrison, there’s hardly ever been a soul up on the rooftop as most choose to sneak out to the nearest tower than further into the heart of this place. But the stars call to Shiro, have been for fifteen years, and he’s not one to ignore their pull. It seems like someone else feels the same way.

It’s a cadet who stands before him, uniform jacket pulled tight over his shoulders as he stares up at the night sky. Wind-kissed cheeks and a sharp jawline, tousled hair and pale skin, he’s young, perhaps fifteen or so, and Shiro gets the feeling he’s seen him before. Then again, he’s sure he’s never met _this cadet_ before.

The kid stiffens at the sound of Shiro’s footsteps, whirling around before the older man has a chance to break the silence. “Who’re you?” he demands, body rigid and focused, like he’s ready to flee at a moment’s notice.

The moon is out tonight, and Shiro can suddenly see him _very_ clearly.

Shiro’s breath catches in his throat. “Keith?”

The cadet pauses, unsure of who Shiro is, and suddenly Shiro _knows_.

 _Someday you’re going to be someone very important to me_ , Keith had told him, years ago, when he stood in that same space, looking at the hidden stars for answers to questions Shiro didn’t even know to ask yet.

 _I’m lost in time,_ Keith had told him, and suddenly things make so much sense.

Keith of the present stares up at him with wide eyes, questions on the tip of his tongue, fear and confusion etched on his face. Bypassing his panic, Shiro steps forward and holds out a hand towards the cadet.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says, tongue wetting his lips as he struggles to compose himself. “I’m Takashi Shirogane, and I’ve heard a lot about you.”

 

*

 

**now.**

The Castle is quiet, lights dimmed low as the Paladins fall into slumber, but Shiro can’t find the sleep his body craves. Instead he roams the halls and finds himself heading to the places he normally visited with Keith, during the long nights where the nightmares were too strong and haunting screams too loud.

He starts in the kitchen where they shared secrets over late evening snacks. He wanders into the control room where they spent hours going over battle plans, everything illuminated under the blue-white glow. There’s the hallways they walked among aimlessly with no destination in mind. The pool where they’d sit with their pants rolled up, legs dipping into the cool water. He goes to the training deck where Keith’s blade sits in the corner with red and white jacket, ditched in a hurry when the alarms rang last.

He takes the blade with him, hugging it to his chest. He wants to keep it close; Keith would want it protected.

Finally, he walks to the observatory room, where he ends up every night.

For hours, he stares out the window at the cascade of stars passing by as the Castle of Lions drifts through space. It’s monotonous and routine at this point, and he comes here to pass the time. Everything out there looks the same, just a black backdrop with pinpricks of light in the distance, and once there’s a planet or gas cloud that stands as a stark silhouette in space, but for the most part, it’s constant scenery that he can lose himself looking at.

He tries not to think about Keith, lost in time and trying to find a way back home. Thinking of all the places he could be, all the times he could’ve traveled to, Shiro must stop before he drives himself crazy. (But he still wonders what happened to Keith, and if he’ll ever know.)

Closing his eyes and leaning forward, he rests his forehead against the cool glass and finds himself lost in time too, in memories he hasn’t thought about in ages.

_What did the stars look like from Kerberos? Do you still look at the stars? Why did you fall in love with them?_

Sometimes he tries to remember why he fell in love with the stars in the first place, but the answer always fades before he can find it. If he closes his eyes and tries to think, he recalls wanting to reach up and brush his fingertips against the blanket of the universe, but it’s distant, gone, lost by now.

(It’s funny, he thinks, for so long he’d wanted to touch the stars, but now that he’s here among them, he wants to be anywhere but.)

 Instead, all he remembers is plastic stars that glow in the dark, an old telescope with a cracked lens that’s hidden in the corner of his garage, a worn leather jacket that’s probably been boxed up and sent home. He remembers flashes of red and white and purple eyes that twinkle like stars in the sky—the strange man who’s always been in his life, hiding in the corners of the room as Shiro watches television, or looking through the window and fogging up the glass during family dinners, or in the back of the ship during simulations. 

For as long as he can remember, Keith has always been there.

  _Even though I know where you are_ , Shiro thinks, remembering Keith in the store with the stars, on the hill with the telescope, on the rooftop at the Garrison. _I don’t know when you are_.

And that makes all the difference.

 

*

 

**then.**

 

As a pilot for the Galaxy Garrison, Shiro thinks he’s learned all he needs about the stars: their temperatures, their types, their orbits. He knows their lifespans and names, their stories and journeys. If he were to take a blank map of the sky, he could sketch out every star’s position, the exact coordinates which are ingrained deep within him.

 At twenty, he knows stars better than he knows people.

 “What do you mean you’re going to Kerberos?” At sixteen, Keith is full of fire, and Shiro’s spent too long trying to tame it. “You just graduated!”

The news comes on a Monday morning, and Keith is banging on his door with a fist like a dagger, poised to strike him in the heart at the first chance. When Shiro lets him in, hysteria bubbles in his throat before spilling out like a waterfall, fluid and loose, as he babbles endlessly about secrets, trust, _how come you didn’t tell me_ , and the silent, shaky _how could you leave me?_  

When Keith is finally done, voice raspy after fifteen minutes of near yelling, Shiro touches his shoulder with a soft hand, the weight draining the tension from the younger pilot’s body. “I was going to tell you later, but—" 

“But you didn’t,” Keith says, and he sounds tired, so tired and disappointed, and Shiro doesn’t know what to do. Of all the scenarios he’d played out before accepting the position on the Kerberos mission, Keith being disappointed in him wasn’t one of them. At the very least, he’d thought his friend would be happy for him. “You didn’t tell me anything, Shiro. I had to find out from the cafeteria worker. The _cafeteria worker_.” 

The shame brews hot in the pit of his stomach. “I didn’t mean for you to find out like this.” 

“But I did,” and it’s all Keith can say, like it’s the only thing he was taught.

When Shiro doesn’t say anything else (because what can he?), Keith simply shakes his head and takes his leave, the door slamming shut with a sense of finality. It reverberates through the room, bouncing off ivory walls covered with tacky Garrison posters and National Geographic print-outs, until it vanishes and the only sound left is Shiro’s heavy breathing.

“How long have you been there?” he asks the room.

 “Long enough,” comes Keith’s reply.

 Shiro swallows thickly, wetting his cracked lips. “Will he forgive me?”

 Keith of the future, the lost time traveler who’s haunted Shiro his whole life, only smiles. “Of course. He always does; it just takes some time.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah.”

 

*

 

**now.**

****

“I know where he is,” Shiro tells Slav once he’s cornered the scientist in the control room before a debriefing. “But I don’t know when.”

Slav quirks an eyebrow in surprise. “But he’s lost. It’s not possible for you to pinpoint; there’s infinite possibilities of where the Red Paladin could be.”

Shiro knows some things about infinity. Space, in its vast expanse, is infinite; and the number of stars in the known universe might as well be too as they can’t be counted, more and more are birthed and burned in the time it takes to form the thought. The possibilities of Keith’s location are not however as infinite as Slav thinks.

In the span of Shiro’s lifetime, there’s a clear beginning and a clear end. While the universe’s creation and destruction are too great to know, Shiro’s is not. Somewhere along his timeline is Keith—whether it’s the windy February morning in 2093 when he was born and his mother recalls the strange boy who handed her a flower and said congratulations, with his father and him in 2102 with a telescope on a hill where he watched Shiro fall in love, or in 2108 when Shiro got his acceptance letter for the Galaxy Garrison and Keith laid a strong, steady hand on his shoulder and flashed him a proud smile. 

Either way, Keith is somewhere, and Shiro will find him.

“I can remember him,” Shiro says, running a hand through his hair as he thinks long and hard. “He’s in my memories, and he’s always been there, but I’m just… remembering now.”

“Ahh.” Slav’s voice turns curious, lifting and falling in the places that mean trouble. “Temporal displacement has repercussions. Time isn’t instantaneous you know; you change something, and it can take years for the effects to show.” 

Allura gasps, hands flying to cover her mouth in surprise. “He’s using you as a fixed point.”

 _You’re my guiding light_ , Keith told him at fifteen. _I’m lost in time, and you’re guiding me home_.

He feels hope in his heart, a throbbing pain that threatens to splinter him whole. “If I’m his fixed point, then can he find his way back here?”

“Of course.” Slav crosses his arms against his chest and turns to the data on the holoscreen. “If he uses you as a fixed point, he can jump around until he finds a way back here.”

“So…” Brows furrowed, Pidge stares Slav in confusion. “It’s that simple? We just wait for him to get back here?”

“If he doesn’t fall into a star first, then sure.”

Shiro’s heart is practically screaming in his chest, pounding against his ribcage to be heard, but he swallows it down, tries to calm it, because now isn’t the right time for panic or jubilation. “So there’s a chance then.”

“I don’t know,” Slav says. “Being lost is tricky. Getting found is hard.”

“But if he can find me,” Shiro starts, but Kolivan interrupts him, laying a strong hand on his shoulder.

“If he can find you,” Kolivan says, “Then you can find him.”

 

*

 

**then.**

He’s twenty-one and scared of space for the first time.

It’s a mess of purple and black, shadows and voices that he can’t discern, and all he can do is curl up in a corner of the cell and stare at his blood-stained fingers. Matt and Sam have been gone for some time now, taken to the mines weeks ago, and Shiro is left with the promise of more battles and his own thoughts. Across from his cell, there’s a portside window—outside, the stars are visible. Shiro tries not to look. 

There’s a flutter like wings, and then Keith is sitting in front of him, blocking out the eerie light from a planet’s moon they’re orbiting. He’s pale with dark bag under his eyes; the purple light of the Galra ship make them look like bruises.

“You’re here,” Shiro says monotonously, like he’d been expecting Keith. And the truth is: he had. In the ages he’s known the cadet at the Garrison and the time traveling man, if there’s one thing he knows for certain about Keith Kogane, it’s that he’ll always come when Shiro needs him.

As a war prisoner for the Galra, Shiro needs him now, more than ever.

“Of course I am,” Keith tells him with a small smile, and it reaffirms everything Shiro ever thought about it.

“Are you going to take me home?” He’s trying to stand, pushing himself up on trembling hands and knees, and the relief in the cell is palpable, growing like the smile on his own face. 

Keith’s face breaks—no, it _crumbles_. “I-I can’t,” he says, and his voice cracks.

Shiro freezes, smile slipping and eyes widening. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t take you with me, Shiro,” he tells him, voice raspy and choked.

Shiro’s throat closes up, and he bites his cracked lip hard enough to bleed. “I don’t understand,” he says, which is what he always says when Keith comes, because even though aliens are real, and he’s never going home, and he’s lost in space forever, he still doesn’t understand how his friend from the Garrison is a time traveler and how he’s letting these horrors happen. 

“There are things you still need to do,” Keith says again, his voice panicked but insistent this time. “Things that I can’t afford to change, even if I could. Even if I wanted to spare you from this, I _can’t_ , Shiro, I just… I can’t.”

There’s a tense pause as they both stand there, one in prisoner garbs and one in that stupid red and white jacket that’s haunted his dreams since he was four. Keith is shaky, and Shiro is stone cold.

“Just go then,” Shiro finally commands—distant and final.

Keith just stares at him with wide and shocked eyes, too stunned to say anything. One of his hands reaches out—whether to comfort or reassure, Shiro isn’t sure—but Shiro still cringes away. However, Keith keeps moving forward, grasping Shiro’s wrists gently and placing them against his chest where Shiro can feel his pounding heart. 

“I made you a promise a long time ago,” Keith tells him with a watery smile. “I will always find you, and I promise that I’m going to find you this time. You’re going to walk away from this, Shiro, even if it doesn’t seem like it right now.”

Shiro ignores the finality in his tone, the goodbye he can feel blooming, and grasps at the front of his shirt with a white-knuckled grip. “But when?” he begs to know. “How long do I have to stay here?”

“I don’t know.” Keith’s voice is shaky, a little out of breath, as if he’s trying not to panic. “Time’s… a little tricky for me. But I promise, you’re going to survive this. I’ll make sure of it.” 

A low growl builds up in the back of Shiro’s throat, the grating noise of an animal in pain, as he tears his hands away from Keith’s. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he spits. 

Silence lingers on, and there’s a choking sound, a sob.

Keith is gone.

 

*

 

**now.**

In the present, Shiro pauses outside of Keith’s bedroom. 

He closes his eyes, leaning against Keith’s doorframe, and tries to think of the last place he saw him, at ten or fifteen or twenty, in all the places he can remember on Earth and all the ones he can’t with the Galra. Everywhere his mind goes, the flashes of red and white follow. Once inside, he picks up Keith’s blade from the night table, rubbing a thumb over the wrappings, and pictures the way Keith handles the weapon, flipping it between fingers and burying it in targets.

 It’s fluid and halting all at once, the perfect juxtaposition, just like Keith.

“Where would you be, Keith?” he asks the silent room.

The bedroom is bare, walls void of personality, and the blankets are pristine and without wrinkles. It’s like no one ever lived here. Shiro is starting to wonder if Keith Kogane even existed at all. 

Shiro presses hard fingers to his mouth, inhaling before exhaling.

He drops the blade on the table, sits on the edge of the bed, and rubs his hands together. “Where are you, Keith?” he asks again.

The room does not respond.

Eventually, he leaves the room and wanders through the halls without a purpose, without a destination. He’s a ghost walking through memories of a past he’d rather forget, a present he’s never truly _lived_ in, and a future he isn’t sure exists. Making promises and looking forward has always been Shiro’s favorite tendency, so eager for what was to come, that he’s never taken the chance to appreciate what he has and was given.

Keith is one of those things.

“Come on, Keith,” he begs, more to himself than anyone else, “Why can’t you come home?”

The question causes him to wonder: _Where is your home, Keith?_

(“I’ll always find you, I promise,” Keith told him. “You’re my guiding light.”)

 

*

 

**then.**

 

Here are a few things Shiro knows:

He’s four and buying plastic stars. 

He’s seven and looking through his first telescope.

He’s twelve and decides he wants to go to space. 

He’s fifteen and misses home. 

He’s nineteen and meets his best friend.

He’s twenty and falls in love.

He’s twenty-one and realizes he lost his chance.

He’s twenty-two, and he’s found his home.

Twenty-two and broken, scars on his body that tell a story he can’t remember, and all he wants to do is slip back into a past to do it all over again. If he chose to be a doctor, would he still have been a gladiator? If he’d been a mechanic like his father, would he have still lost his arm? If he was an engineer like Matt, perhaps he wouldn’t have gone into space.

But then again, fate, he has learned, has a funny way of making things happen.

So at twenty-two, safe but still scared, Shiro swears to move on and put the past he wants to forget behind him. It does no good to dwell on the things you can’t change. He becomes the leader of Voltron, Paladin of the Black Lion, and he saves space in all its vastness, one planet and person at a time, until he all there is left is the mission, and the people, and the future he can work to change for everyone (including himself). 

Keith, _his Keith_ , is with him, and he watches Keith grow into someone he always knew he could be. Keith is full of fire and wit, eager to prove himself and lead even though he doesn’t know it yet, and Shiro can see his future in all its infiniteness.

In the training deck, he watches from the tower, as Keith takes down bot after bot, works himself to the bone and builds himself back up again.

There’s a familiar flutter, and the _other_ Keith appears, jacket and all.

“So you made it,” Keith says, and there’s already an apology on the tip of tongue, but Shiro stops him.

“Thank you,” he tells him, fixating him with a soft expression. “I know I didn’t say it back then, but really, I mean it.”

“I’m sorry I left you there,” Keith tells him anyway, shifting anxiously in his stance, arms crossed against his chest. “I wish I could’ve helped.”

“You did,” Shiro says, and he means it. “You gave me hope, and that’s what I needed.”

There’s silence for a moment, and Shiro knows Keith wants to say more, but he won’t let him. “Go home,” he says instead. “Go home, Keith.”

“I already am.” Keith looks at him in earnest. “Don’t you know that?”

Shiro glances at the training deck, in the alien spaceship so far away from Earth. “I would hardly call this home.”

“Well, I do.” Keith purses his lips in a thin line, looking at the training deck and seeing something else. “Out here, with the stars and _you_ , I’m home.”

 

*

 

**now.**

Shiro takes a gamble and heads for the observatory.

Here are a few things Shiro knows:

He’s four and buying plastic stars. He’s seven and looking through his first telescope. He’s twelve and decides he wants to go to space. He’s fifteen and misses home. He’s nineteen and meets his best friend. He’s twenty and falls in love. He’s twenty-one and realizes he lost his chance. He’s twenty-two, and he’s found his home. He’s twenty-three and falls in love again. All his life, it’s always been Keith and the stars.

 _Why did you fall in love with the stars?_ Keith asked him.

 _Because of you_ , Shiro never told him. _I fell in love with them because I fell in love with you._

He’s staring out the window, at the stars and everything he let go to waste, when there’s the familiar flutter that sounds like coming home, and so he turns around and there’s Keith. He’s found him—just like every time before.

“Welcome home,” Shiro says, a warm smile stretching across his face and warm tears brewing in his eyes.

Keith blinks hard, looks around, and finally meets his eyes. “I’m back?”

“I sure hope so,” Shiro tells him, and he’s got a hand on his chest, feeling Keith’s heartbeat beneath his fingertips, a feeling he’s so desperately missed. “Unless you have plans to leave anytime soon?”

“Believe me,” Keith says and shakes his head. “I’ve had enough time travel to last me a while.”

They stand there for a while in the silence of the observatory room, with the stars gliding past the window behind them and each other in front of them. After a few minutes of disbelief and relief bubbling into one, Shiro brings Keith into a tight embrace, tucking his face in the crook of his neck, and just breathes. Keith has the same idea as his dark hair tickles Shiro’s nose.

“I missed you,” he tells Keith, even though Keith has never really left him. “It’s good to have you back.”

Keith sighs against him. “It’s good to be back.”

“Promise me you won’t ever do that again,” Shiro tells him.

Keith pauses and says, “I can’t promise, but I can try.”

It’s the right answer, as Shiro’s finally learned.

And then they’re pulling away, and Shiro looks at him and suddenly remembers the promises he never kept, the things he never said, the way he took Keith for granted when all he wanted was to keep him close. With a heavy heart and breathless hope, he takes Keith into his arms again, presses his lips against his in a short and sweet kiss, and tries not to think about anything else.

All that matters right now is the way Keith’s lips feel against his and the warmth of his face in his hands as he brushes the pads of his thumbs over the apples of his cheeks. Keith breathes, hot and heavy, against him as he deepens the kiss, and buries everything he can into it. It’s full of everything and nothing at the same time, the things Shiro implied but never said, the way he feels and all he remembers. 

“I love you,” he says into the kiss.

Keith accepts it and pulls him closer.

 

It’ll do for now.

 

*

 

**when.**

“Why did you fall in love with the stars?” Keith asks Shiro one night, tangled in sweat-soaked sheets and pressed up against his chest.

Shiro etches words into his cool skin, writing a book on the beauty he saw that morning—tousled hair painted with the night sky and eyes flecked like a summer rainstorm—and hums in thought. He traces the veins in Keith’s wrists, following them up his arm, neck, and to his lips—lips he remembers asking him the same question months ago.

Shiro can only look down at Keith, all glittering eyes and soft smile, and brushes away his bangs with a finger. “Because of you,” he tells him in a whisper, full of love and happiness. “I fell in love with the stars because of you.”


End file.
